Framing the last

I could do with that long sleep right about now. Is it worth holding on to find out it's not worth holding on, for the sake of vindicating a long-held suspicion to spite the scepticism of my scepticism? Forced to visualise that hula-hoop of pain circulating around my torso threatening evacuation – soul ejaculation – from the body. Internal organs were punctured and flesh seared in the space of jumbled reason that pitched the physics of the muzzle flash, seemingly registering after the knock-down force of impact, as an after-image. Reminder. The importance of ordering events now? When I was in training they said: take pain as the body's run-it-up the flag-pole signal it was healing itself, a cauterising purge if you like; of course, that was just a self-propagandising prop – the self-administered sugared placebo – to avoid confronting the thought that pain is also a sign of serious, sometimes mortal, injury, but only the true believer sees it as the Elastoplast between the unknowable hope and actual medical attention. I had a neat little speech planned out, well semi – the key points; I like to leave room for improvisation – about how this was all a reversal of fortune; far from being the failure it appeared, his hand had been forced and framed with attempted murder or, failing that, actual murder; the success of my little enterprise wasn't dependent on that differentiation, etc. Hopefully, subsequent actions and reactions would speak louder than the words of explanation I was failing to ...